Chapter VI

Decipherment of the Third or Babylonian Column: Hincks and
Rawlinson: A.D. 1846-51 337

The Babylonian Inscriptions: Michaux Stone and East India House 337

The Assyrian Inscriptions discovered by Botta and Layard:
A.D. 1843-5 339

Botta: ‘Essai de Déchiffrement’: A.D. 1845 343

On the Varieties of Writing 343

The language of the Babylonian and Assyrian Inscriptions shown
to be identical with that of the Third Column—It is Semitic 348

First attempt to decipher it—Grotefend: A.D. 1824-40 352

Löwenstern on Asdod: A.D. 1845 355

Hincks’s Essay of June 1846 357

Rawlinson: A.D. 1847 362

Criticised by Löwenstern in ‘Exposé des Eléments’: A.D. 1847 364

Hincks: The Khorsabad Inscription: June 1849 369

” The Appendix: Jan. 1850 374

” Mode of Writing: August 1850 375

Rawlinson: Second Memoir prepared: A.D. 1849 377

” The Two Lectures: Jan. and Feb. 1850 379

” Earliest Assyrian Translation from Black Obelisk 382

” Publication of Third Column of Behistun Inscription:
A.D. 1851 386

The Services of Hincks and Rawlinson compared 396

The Claims of De Saulcy examined 398

Conclusion 407

APPENDICES

A.—Table showing the different values assigned to each letter of
the Old Persian Alphabet 420

B.—Table showing the true values of the Old Persian letters and
the author and date of their decipherment 426

C.—Table showing the different values given to each sign of the
Susian (Median) Syllabary 430

INDEX 443

PLAN OF PERSEPOLIS _Frontispiece_

[The Plan of Persepolis is inserted by kind permission of Lord Curzon of
Kedleston from his work ‘Persia and the Persian Question.’]